a couple of mornings ago i hobbled out (crutchless) to my big old japanese indigo plants, and picked the drying flowers, in hopes of saving plenty of seed for next year's experiments.
my playtime with fresh-leaves indigo baths earlier this season was, after all, only play. fresh leaves are not the way to get a deep, lasting, saturated blue. that is done in a long, painstaking process, using leaves that have been composted until no organic matter remains except the blue dye itself, then using that stuff in a carefully balanced, heated, long-tended dye vat. far more than my urban resources allow me to do, not only in terms of the indigo i have, but in terms of time, space, and abilities.
so what can one do?
believe it or not, the japanese have invented a freeze-dried indigo vat! just add water and you have a ready-to-go vat of deep, blue, strangely smelly stuff that does indeed turn your yarn (or whatever) very, very blue. it's as easy as making kool-aid!
i tried it, and i loved it. here you see the results. you have seen this yarn before: it is the plied wild silk from
habu textiles
and the soy silk that i spun on my drop spindle.
to which, i added a little of the coby yarn...
... to make this rather mark rothko-like swatch, which, yes, is on it's way to being what i hope will be a very special project.